Chance seeds and incidental sprouts

 

Brother, whenever you fulminate with pride, remember that we are mere chance seeds thrown around. If we land up in a corner where sunshine, soil, wind and rain help us germinate better, it’s sheer luck. Accept it with gratitude. Some other seed landed on a stony barren terrain, some in a bog, some in a drain, some on a waste dump in a slum. These seeds carried the same potential as you. They just landed in saddening, squabbling, feverish conditions. The potential withered in the womb of germination. They got stunted, fragile, poor, disadvantaged and enchained by crippling circumstances.

We are the products of nature’s unpremeditated plans—the open-ended process; the unplanned plan that progresses with fixed laws of nature. I know the flippant rhetorician in you will scoff at the proposition that we are the off-shoots of chance seeds. I know you have been customized to believe that the mankind has to forge his destiny; that we create our circumstances. But mind you, this boasting loquacity is simply a chance given to you by favorable winds.

One seed falls in squalor; the other in fertile soil—isn’t it already a favor to the latter? When you start acknowledging the role of so many circumstantial factors in shaping your better destiny—your birth in a better family, meeting supportive people, being present at an opportune time, favorable winds blowing, being healthy in your natural constitution—you will feel gratitude for what you have received. Once you feel gratitude, you will see the positives hidden behind the apparently tough situations you have faced in life. If the skin has a boil, you will be thankful that at least the bone inside isn’t broken. And despite all the routine struggles of life, you will accept that at least you are alive today, while so many died on this very day.

The death of a tree

 

Thus speaks a tree that has been killed:

 

They uprooted me. There was a murderous glint in their eyes. Pulled me out with wild enthusiasm. My spine, my main trunk snapped. My lungs shattered and dusted. My leafy head grounded. My fingers, my branches, chopped off. But my legs, my roots, had the sky to look forward to. So I pushed my roots into the sky. That would be my earth now. And they can’t rob me of it. Because my roots will grow into the invisible airy fibers. A reverse tree in this steely straight world. Or a straight tree in an upside world. Choose what you prefer to say it. But I’m a floating one definitely. I can just go like a cloud from place to place; laughing at human follies. Sad for them; joyful for myself.

The maker

 

At the basic level of survival we walk inwards, to shrink, to give more concrete shape to our interests. And the protective walls around us—that we inherit collectively and also that we make individually—look like our defense ramparts. Yes, to begin with we need defensive walls. These are necessary because we are born so weak and vulnerable. The initial yolk of our existence needs the protective eggshells. From that we acquire more specific chick shape. But doesn’t the shell has to be broken by the chick to grow further, acquire wings and fly to live life fully? If not, that same protective wall becomes a barrier, a trap for death.

Usually our protective walls, which we naturally needed to begin with, stay with us. And we continue—out of habit—erecting more individual walls even when we no longer need them around us. So instead of dismantling the walls we keep strengthening them. The foolish prisoner who works to consolidate the prison walls. Then these walls become a barrier, a trap for stunted growth; shackles in our legs; rings in our wings—to stop us from flying and maximizing the full potential of our seed of existence.

To become a maker, one then needs to be a breaker of these barriers. The eggshell that incubated us, but now needs to be broken and discarded. Be a grand laborer holding the hammer. Strike forcefully. Break the redundant shell. Come out and make life like an artist.

The new man

 

A tree sings through the birds sitting on it. Smiles through its flowers. Doles out charity through its fruits. Becomes a loving host with the shade under its canopy and the nesting space among its branches. When the wind blows, the murmurs and rustle of its leaves are the words filling the silence. And silence drips from its rustling words. The cut marks on its trunk are the eyes; deep seas full of unshed tears; vast stretches of water. The waters sometimes storm-driven by adverse winds; sometimes calm little ripples gently pushed by the breeze of sympathetic touch on its wound by a poetic heart.

In losing forests, lakes, pastures and rivers, we are losing a big part of our own self. We are turning strangers to our own self; weird shapes building within us. No wonder we seem like ghosts to each other. And the ghosts hardly listen to the message of love and peace.

The mankind seems mired in the bog of liquid melancholy. The species of living ghosts. Shame loaded over their skin in thick layers, giving them a sturdy armor, a shield against light, truth and openness. Lies and falsehood pile up in the body imprisoned in the armor. A junkyard.

Dear reader, walking among them, slowly losing to melancholy, losing light and hope, your greatest fears will scare you. The slurs shouted at the top of their voice don’t hit that hard as do the silent hate, accusations and judgments pouring out of their eyes. Don’t just back off and run away. If you enter the ghostly cave and manage to keep walking, it will take you to an opening leading to unimaginable freedom.

A walk in the town park

 

I’m early in the town on some errand and have some time to kill—as they say—before the shops and offices open. The air still has some languorous contentment after the night rest before the awkward exuberance of the day shoves it alertness into the fray; thus notifying everyone to be ready for the engaging statistics of a busy, crowded day.

An inspiration to make time instead of killing it sprawls its arms quite expressively. I decide to use the opportunity offered by a fine little park by a road. It’s a long rectangular park with a newly laid chocolate-colored walking track. One complete round roughly measuring one kilometer. A senior citizen is walking quite briskly. The ruddy flush on his chubby face show hard determination. The shambling strides with bandy legs carry unabated zeal for an active life. The sight pumps enough inspiration in my legs to start walking and make time rather than kill it.

This is Monday late morning, the monsoons resting after many rainy days. Someone passes with knitting brows and gritting teeth for a bashful stroll. Good way to spend energy instead of pouring it upon someone as scorn. A woman is walking with impatient unmeasured strides. A girl looks tipsy but curt and agile—drunk with youth. A young boy with jaunty strides. An old man going sedately mindful of the lack of axle grease in the wheels of life at this stage. A middle-aged man looks amiably, another stares distrustfully and guardedly. Well, enough of spying on others. Let me mind my business and start walking instead of just standing and staring at people.

The leafy trees on the sides of the track and over the narrow length of the park full with green luxuriance, almost shading the stylish cast iron lampposts. There is a busy road on the one side; a housing block the other way with its caged-in backyards to undo encroachments by the man- and monkey-kind. The long narrow rectangular strip has overgrown grass. Assured of not being flummoxed by a predator, a rat is out on a stroll too. Seeing me coming it scampers off with a snooty frown and hides in its hole by the base of a long mercury light pole. A monkey sitting on a branch stares out of the corner of its eyes to ensure if I carry some eatables, and if yes how to waylay me at some isolated spot. A few squirrels playing on the track, flicking their tails and fidgeting coquettishly. One flounces this and that way, wrangling with uncertainty, a chance juggler or acrobat. I have to stop in order to avoid treading over it. One angry type runs with me in a retorting and obstinate manner as if accusing me of accidently barging into his girlfriend.

An injured monkey, its mischief all crumpled, is thankfully well behaved as I pass just a couple of feet from it. But a mama monkey is gripped with tension and mocks a cunning attack to help her son lick mossy water from a puddle nearby. Another one surreptitiously stares into my pocket. I put my hand on it to save my phone from getting stolen. He seems a hard-boiled character and slyly follows me with a jagged, jerkily swaddled walk.

A friendly Labrador is walking leisurely, while its pet father is exercising with tongue in a political debate. State elections are just three weeks away and thus consume lots of tongue energy among the masses. This I would call the real slaughter of time. I would prefer anything but not this. It makes me very miserable after political talks. Why kill time while the politicians reach the glittering zenith of fame, money and power, while we remain the same despite all the promises bombarded upon us during the election times?

A young boy is running. I really appreciate this—a kind of real polished insignia of youth. It’s better than moonlighting the nights with the phones and getting into internecine struggles over girls. Good going boy, first make yourself and then give yourself a break.

A young girl, student most probably, is sitting on a bench, surfing her mobile phone, caught in the thrilling myths of love, lust and growing up. Completely ignorant of the fresh air and the nice walking track, no wonder she gives a sickly feel. The heady smell of youth haloed in mist.

There are love-birds on a stone bench. Her dress, blue kurta and black salwar, clearly shows that she is a private security guard at some establishment. They have time till their office opens. She is sitting, he is lying; his head in her lap, surfing the phone; she rummaging her fingers through his hair. He must have used a nice shampoo this morning. I assume it to be an extramarital affair. Both of them look married but husband and wife would hardly have enough spirit and love left to allow it to spill over for a public display of affection on a Monday morning. Well, let them have their bleary ecstasy among all the clammy and artless folds of life.

A man is working in the open gym, adroitly ferreting out bundles of energy to pump into thick muscles. With edifying alacrity another man is walking backwards, looking this and that side to peer behind to avoid collision. He moves steadily and ardently. I hope he hasn’t been punished by his wife for some mischief to go lapping backwards as atonement. Swings and slides are resting. The children must already be in their schools wearily waiting for the classes to end and then feel the seething chill of freedom on the closing time. The swings will be creaking in the evening probably.

There is an overweight pulpy group of men in their fifties and above. Their nerves wrung taut. Garrulous debate, flushed faces, ominously forcing their points. They arduously drag on, stamping nuggets of their political truth, which is in proportion to deceit and falsehood. Among them one dried up wheelchair-bound old man looks flummoxed and puzzled. He is resignedly listening to the excited talk. Thank god there is national flag on the top of the round open pavilion nearby to remind them that they are all Indians and need not break their heads over different political flags.

The traffic is light on the road so I can hear the pleasant twittering of birds. A merry mynah. A vexed tailorbird. Beseeching, imploring notes of a koel. Impish guttural cooing of a pigeon. Rockchats with their morning-time pleasantries. Enchanted blubbering of a babbler. A crow cawing with uncertain pride.

A short old man takes a pinch of snuff to boost his moral. He is the cleaner with his rickshaw, doing his work gently with nice focus, piling his rickshaw cart with fallen leaves and other littler that uncaring people would always fail to put in the waste bins so prominently placed in the park. He walks amiably, almost with evocative courtesy, placing his steps with a age-born limp, dragging his cart around the park. He need not talk. His work itself is a big statement—the best use of time anyone in the park is having at the moment.

A plump woman in peacock blue salwar-kurta topped with a white lab-coat. Her broom is tied to the end of a long stick. She is seriously working, cleaning the dirt, fallen leaves and litter. I wish she had the rights to hit the political debaters with her long broom and remind them the purpose of the park—an avenue to shed some fat from their bulging paunches.

I walk for about 45 minutes and thus make time instead of killing it.

Grounded divinity

 We have created so much electricity that the stars have lost their right to light the earth with their soft, gentle, twinkling smiles. The night sky seems lost. Maybe the sky now looks at the earth for inspiration—to come down, not rise.

The glass is half full

 

A woman has lots of issues and grudges with life. Her life isn’t too bad; it’s defined by the routine Indian lower middle class challenges. But she puts herself under lots of stress while recounting all the lamenting stuff. I hear her discussing the tale of woes with her female neighbors so many times. I feel like gently reminding her, ‘It could have been easily worse than this. You could have been an Afghani woman, deprived of colors from your clothing, robbed of the sight of your own hair, deprived of the freedom to walk, talk, exclaim, look the way you like.’ But I don’t think she would get this, so no point in telling her all this.

Expectation

 

Overall, the sum of pain, suffering, unhappiness, agony, tragedies in life—both individual and collective as a species—is far greater than the sum of happiness and joy. Happiness is almost like a few diamonds in a deep coal mine; the shying crystals hidden deep in the womb of tons of mud, rock, earth, stones and coal. But that’s why we dig a mine. And exactly for the same reason we live; we dig the deep mine of life unearthing pain and miseries to finally reach the few crystals of joy. We walk through the darkest pits because we expect that life will someday get filled with color and joy.

Building stamina with the health food of faith

 

Given a choice I would just lie down all days, months and years, simply reading, studying, writing, learning. But this much of enormity of nothingness at the physical level will see the body rusting like an unused car in a yard turning to junk. So it’s better to move, shake, stretch, bend—chalti ka nam gadi hai, as they say. There are people to whom physical exertion doesn’t come naturally. They can take a detour to physical activity by setting up a target. For example, going for hiking and trekking in the mountains. So obviously you have to prepare. I mix another ingredient, faith. Since there are many high-altitude pilgrimage places in the Himalayas, I routinely plan to go on pilgrimages. So it serves multiple purposes.

I’m a Ganga Ma devotee, so going to Gaumukh nurtures my faith and the preparations to trek at an altitude of 14500 feet serve the body. It forces me to abandon books for some time and do some exercises. I won’t enter a gym unless an assault rifle is held against my head. Too much muscular intimidation for a poetic man there. I get scared. So I have my own exercise alternative—walking up and down the open stairway (22 steps) leading from the courtyard to the terrace. A nice cardio exercise, good for heart, lungs and leg muscles, all key players in mountain trekking, be it for pilgrimage or plain adventure. So here I go and move up and down the stairs. Slowly lumbering up, gently clambering down, the breathing getting more labored with the passage of minutes, the heart beating faster, the leg muscles tightening and exercise-born sweat emerging on the skin of a poetic man! It’s the eighth wonder brothers and sisters! I straggle up and down for almost half an hour. The drops of sweat fall on the steps. One, two, three… I count them. They look like big milestones of my effort. The little drizzle of my exertion.

A reconciliation

 

He is sitting with a smug expression; in full acceptance of one’s situation, which brings restfulness to life quite naturally. He is sitting on the roof of the tall new house of my neighbor overlooking my low but resolutely sprawled out old country house. Looking down upon me, eh! The world below is busy with routine exhaustless rambling. Despite the unrestrainable threads of mischief in his species’ DNA, he hasn’t yet broken the terms of ceasefire. No slimy gamut of mischief in my garden from his side; no detestable shouts at his mere sight from my side. Both sides contributing their respective share to peace. The best part about investing in peace is that it gets you the handsome most returns.

He is all focus at some point on the distant roofs. Men will be men—he is either eying a lady or some rival. I offer him a fresh ghee-smitten chapatti on the window slab of my terrace room. He looks at it just once and continues with his stare at the more coveted objects. My ego feels bruised and lacerated. Peace is very fragile and ego a hard stone. But I would advise one to keep its glass façade because it allows lovely sunshine into the room of your existence. So one ought to pay even extra to maintain peace. It will still be better than breaking the glass and again revamp, replenish and reconstitute the entire façade. So I quash the germs of malignity, gulp down insult and move from the place, feeling bad that he doesn’t even look at my gift. ‘Maybe he isn’t hungry,’ I think.

I return a few minutes later to take away the chapatti so that the visiting feral cat could have it. There he comes hurriedly but with confident ease. I stand at a little distance. He still keeps the ceasefire and doesn’t snarl or growl. I stand hospitably and he takes away the chapatti as if it was his right and my duty. I think he is just putting up attitude, thinking that if he instantly jumped to my offer, he will appear like a beggar. So he takes it in a very casual way; as if it doesn’t matter to him at all. This is what I term as attitude.

A slow-paced day

 

Life is happy and good because I receive a big carton of pears as gift. Juicy pears enter even the most desolate parts and fill life with joy. But during the transport many big juicy ones have turned pulpy. Joy is never complete; it comes with conditions attached. Here the condition is that I have to ignore the loss. But there is an option to use these partially spoilt ones—instead of throwing them, I use them as ceasefire table items.

It’s Tuesday and the head monkey is visiting the locality with his family. His clan is bigger than the last time I remember. There is new addition to his harem. He is watchful as his clan eats pulpy pears. One little one is trying to catch butterflies around the peregrina flowers.

Fed with pears and the ceasefire still more reinvigorated I am going on my bike. I advise against being too bothered about the side happenings on the road. One has to be very focused on the job. One has to save one’s bones amidst the thundering prancing of the travelling bravehearts. But some things will always fall in your zone of vision. You can’t avoid them even with your brain all occupied in reaching safe amidst all the roaring runnels and gurgling gullies of driving passion on the road.

A massively fat policeman taking a lift on a slender splendor bike. The slim bike grumbles, the thin boy mumbles. I can’t see the boy at all as I catch up with them from behind.

Shri Bansidham Gaushala Society (Reg.) written on a gau seva banner at the back of an e-rickshaw. The narrow and longish vehicle purring to the destination with chapattis, grass and donated food.

A lone quail trying to run and cross the road, making several failed attempts as the vehicles keep rushing past. Mr. Quail, why don’t you fly a little and use your wings for a short flight? You will get trampled or get a two-wheeler guy tumbling on the road.

The infant lying on a cloth on the grass by the road under a forlorn acacia tree, and his/her three years old brother tending, keeping a watch over the baby. Already into the household duties! Their parents, the migrant Bihari couple, working on a construction site nearby.

A lapwing crushed on the road. The feathery carcass. I stop and as I pick it up to give it some dignity of a humble burial nearby, I hear the pittering, warning notes, maybe from its partner. A bird has little blood; it’s more of flying spirit, airiness.

I reach my destination, the place of enlightenment of a local saint. I disturb the watery meditation of a fish as I step into the pond to take a bath. It springs up in surprise and panic, missing my nose by a whisker, going several feet high in the air and lands at a safe place. I nearly fall down.

The saint’s soul reimburses me for the little shock as I, by chance, happen to enter his another ashram on my way back. The cook-cum-caretaker is a kindly man. He shows me the place—the guru’s resting place, meditation rooms, and serves hot milk and sweet petha. He seems a lovely human being doing tapasya through seva. Seva is a very noble form of tapasya. We hold a very nice discussion about the life and times of the saint who shed his body about two and half decades back. His fragrance still lingers and many take solace from it.

Hvaldimir

 

Sometimes fame would knock at your door beseechingly even if you aren’t seeking it and happen to be a whale. Fuddled with babbling public fancy, the strains of fame tugged at a particular whale’s fins. The animated aquatic fans celebrated the whale as ‘Russian Spy Whale’. The year before, it created a crisply sparkled ruckus in Norway as the government cautioned the people against any contact with the whale seen in a fjord near Oslo. It jangled the ears of common people like those of sleuths and spies. It was christened and given a name, Hvaldimir (Hval—Norwegian word for whale, combined with Russian name Vladimir).

As the people plentifully regaled at the sight, the whale also—quite surprisingly—looked at ease in human company. The beluga whale, initially spotted in 2019, stood at 14 feet in length and weighed 2700 pound. She had a harness apparently meant to carry a spy camera. The harness carried a marketing ‘equipment’ from a St. Petersburg company. So the people conspiratorially speculated that it was a Russian spy whale on a mission. Although Russia didn’t make any ownership claim.

Belugas generally inhabit far off frozen Arctic waters. But this one seemed to like human company. The people got fascinated by its sight. The white whale was known to stay in the inner Oslo fjord near a densely populated area. Then one day recently they found her dead. The news is heartbreaking for some people who had become its fans.

The creator

 

Life invincible. A crack in the concrete wall. Some chance seed of a flower lands on the barely visible space in the crack. The rains follow. The dew forms pearls on the petals. The chance seed makes the most of what has been given to it and germinates. There you have a little plant high on the wall waving in the breeze like a banner of life in a zone where life has no business to thrive. The plant then proclaims victory and you have a little flower on the top of this tiny plant.

The triumph of life, the urge to manifest from the unknown to the known. Is the flower separate from the stone? No. It’s mere extension of the stone from its cracked lip, its mouth open to the possibilities. I would say it’s a smile on the stone’s lips.

Even in its barren womb, the stone has the probability and potential for life. All it needs is a little crack, some drops of rain and a chance seed to transform that potential into reality. The stone smiles. The flower isn’t something separate from it. It’s merely an extension of it.

Manifestation is just a set of probabilities coming together from the infinite, ever evolving fabric of potential and probabilities. And of course it needs a set of appreciating eyes to witness this leela. It just needs some chance factors to acquire a structured pattern from the random factors sprinkled around like stars in the sky to complete one more little circle within the greatest circle ever; things going round and round; little cycles within the bigger cycles and still bigger ones to follow; going so big to again fall back into a point; nothingness and everythingness just the same.

Colors of beauty emerge from the stony ramparts of struggle, just like our very own journey through various challenges. There is an inherent inspiration in the cosmic fabric for this transformation. What drives this change, one may ask. Well, to the seeker of change, be it in terms of technical success or simple artistic evolution, inspiration comes from all corners. It’s basically hope. An assurance that life settles back to normal after the chaos; that a new day comes after the night; that lovely spring blooms after horrid winters; that the same people who mourn over the dead will be smiling on new births; that tears of loss lose value in the face of a smile after success; that even dead trunks give live shoots.

I know it sounds poetic but there is an essential core of inspiration; a creative urge to renew and extend the present status. I think it’s in sync with this cosmic expansion. All of us are drawn to expand the horizon in our unique ways in the fields of science, technology, medicine, arts, philosophy and much more.   

The picnicking elephant

 

Gajraj turned uproariously musth and became disgruntled and disapproving of the human bondage. He broke chains and ropes with immaculate show of hormone-boosted power, and tipsy on love-booze escaped into the forest with his six women—Chameli, Kaveri, Suheli, Pawankali, Kiran and Sulochna. They escaped into the solicitous greenery of the rhino reserved area.

Gajraj is a trained elephant in Dudhwa National Park. Basically he is a nice guy, cordially tagging around the forest officials in fulfillment of his duties, using his power with a well-checked iciness. But on entering the turbulent musth phase, he turned growling and fidgety; became forbiddingly aggressive and broke the shackles for love in free woods.

There are about 25 camp elephants in the national park for tourism, patrolling and conflict management in the zone of human-animal shared boundaries. Ingeniously timing the event he set out on the eve of the Indian Independence Day, making a big statement in favor of unchecked love in free woods.

The pachyderms are stationed at rhino rehabilitation area in Sonaripur range, a pristine 27 sq km expanse of sal and damar trees, nine lakes and mouthwatering grasslands. The area has 46 one-horned rhinos. I think he must have pushed them out of his playground in his state of heightened aggression born of increased hormonal activity in his system.

Gajraj was brought here in 2008 from Jaldapara wildlife sanctuary to keep a watch on the rhinos and patrol the area. He was ten then. He must have been on quarrelsome terms with Kamalkali because she didn’t go with him on this escapade. Sulochna and Chameli were his childhood friends because they had arrived with him at the park.

Dudhwa tiger reserve officials panicked with the elephants’ disappearance. Free love always meets a hoarsy retort. Love will always have its opponents, so the teams of forest workers, drone cameras and mahouts set out to capture the fugitives. A WWF team also arrived to assist the search operations. The tiger reserve spans an area of 2201 sq km richly imbued with greened freedom. A good space for the tremulous blizzard of elephant love. A zone of solitudinal sweet sighs as opposed to the stinking muck of captivity.

The park shares border with Nepal and if the lovebirds enter the neighboring country, it would be very difficult to get them back because elephants don’t carry passports and Nepal might say they are their elephants. They are spotted after a couple of days. But just two days of love in the woods with his harem aren’t sufficient for Gajraj, so he chases away the rescue teams. The teams kept pursuing them for the next two weeks. He turned his usual well-behaved self after a fortnight of triumphant and unhindered love in the woods. The love-satiated pachyderm was calm now when the rescuers reached him and escorted the runaway king and his six queens back to the camp.

Sizzling September

 

As August hands over the baton to September, you have a fluidic canvas of blue, grey, white and black—loafs of clouds floating to give sunshine and shade almost alternately. Some naughty little cloud wets the cloth-lines even though there is sunshine.

One can even beat one’s loneliness by looking at the shifting shapes and turn it into solitude.

After a brief spell of rain if you care to look among the fallen leaves under a tree, you may come across a dead butterfly. She too was a colorful flying leaf on the tree of mother existence.

The beauty of September rain is that it doesn’t upbraid you directly like the previous months when the monsoon was at its prime. The clouds cantering towards conclusion, the sunshine capering about them forming a frivolous game. Then suddenly a brief drizzle comes to wet everything. And before you realize you see the clouds drifting away; they have many interesting shapes and silver edges; leaving behind a green world full of freshly bathed leaves gleaming under the bright sun. The butterflies come out again. Sometimes you get rain and sunshine side by side. You cannot help gasping with ravishing delight because the rain wasn’t expected. But someone gets disconcerted because the clothes on the line are wet again. The September rain is in trilling accompaniment with mischief—old season’s young spirit.

One such naughty spell of rain catches a blacksmith gypsy woman off guard. She is selling plastic ware. Iron-forging days are over. It’s a world of plastic and fiber. The mass-produced items hardly leave any space for them to forge small iron implements and utensils in their little furnaces. So they trade plastic now. She still wears their traditional dress. But they are clearly struggling. It’s impossible to survive as a wandering nomad these days. You need to dig your survival well at a congested place. They are trying to move faster by changing their bullock carts into bike-rickshaws, their sides having a cheap imitation of the nail artistry that those sturdy carts used to have. The big caravans changed to lonesome nomads driving the tattered bike-rickshaw piled with meager possessions and the family. But this swifter movement isn’t enough. So they now turn squatters in urban areas at narrow strips of public land along the roads. They now expect the government to accept them as the citizens of India with identity cards, documents and some entitlements.

On a September evening, we have a brief but heavy downpour. Then the clouds part. The sun plays with clouds in the west. One ought to keep one’s eyes ready for a rainbow in the east on such occasions. If you are lucky you will have your multihued arc in the sky. And coming across a rainbow cheers you up; just like finding a peacock feather on the ground towards which both a king and a pauper will run with equal enthusiasm. The fact is we are seeking colors. So if you don’t get a rainbow on such a rainy evening, the clouds will make up for it. White, orange, red, yellow, grey blue, black—you have the entire range as the setting sun peeks through the rain-soaked veil.

The peacocks are into love games in September. Lots of dancing and you should keep an eye for their love-drops—master-colored feathers. If you find one, rush to grab it before anyone else, and hold it; it’s an asset in many ways.

A bulbul and a sparrow are having a tiff on a wire. The swallows are angry that the little hawk, shikra, is here. They want him out. A squirrel hurries in dragging a strip of rag. It goes up a few feet on the tree and then takes a pause to roll the strip into a ball to crawl up easily and then adorn her house with the new decoration. But while she rushed in, she scared an adolescent gecko. The latter simply panicked at the sight. The leaves drip due to the shower they recently received. Thus passes a rainy September evening. All this is so familiar, yet so-so different.

Lonely trees

 

Sitka spruce on Campbell Island in Southern Ocean holds the Guinness World Record for being the ‘remotest tree’ on the planet. The loneliest tree is 250 km away from its nearest companion. It’s named Ranfurly tree after Lord Ro, then New Zealand governor, who planted it in the early 1900s.

Tenere tree is, rather was, also one of the most lonely trees on the earth. It was a landmark on the caravan route in Sahara desert in northeast Niger. This and the Arbre Pendu (Lost Tree) to its north were the only trees shown on a map of 1:4,000,000. Tenere tree stood for 300 years before being knocked by a drunk Libyan truck driver in 1973. Even earlier it had been badly mauled due to vehicle hits even though there was all the space all around for a vehicle to pass. Its roots reached 108 feet to draw moisture of life. The camels didn’t eat its leaves. The Azalai caravans didn’t cut its branches to make tea. It was a kind of tribal custom mixing superstition and reverence for something so rare in the cruel desert. The caravaniers gathered around it before crossing it, so it served as a type of lighthouse in the sea of sand. A traveler said about it: ‘An acacia with sickly trunk but nice green leaves and yellow flowers.’ Then the vehicles started and it was badly mauled. There is a metal sculpture and pavilion housing its remains as a commemorative shrine.

Asia’s lone redwood tree stands at CSIR Yarikha Tangmarg, Baramulla. It’s primarily found in North America. The tree is 150 years old. It’s in the shape of a huge mushroom, evergreen but the birds avoid it. In fact, no bird is seen sitting or nesting on this exotic tree. The CSIR has declared it a heritage tree. All efforts to create its progeny through cuttings in open fields, polyhouses, greenhouses and laboratories have failed. Even the seeds injected with growth hormones have failed to germinate.

Life and times in a little hilly corner

 

The hills unfold in all sublimity as nature goes for unpaved walks. All around there is an illustrious and august affluence of her smiles, shoots, saplings, flowers, fruits, plants and trees. Foggy and pleasantly confusing trails beckon the wanderlust souls. Fleeting streamlets coolly rushing on with an assured music on their lips and spontaneous foresight in head. We try to catch up with our roads and boundaries and strive to own our share from one air, one earth, one sky, one water, one fire.

The serpentine road from Tiuni to a little hamlet near Arakot 30 km away represents this administrative and ownership tussle between Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It’s a narrow road along Pabbar river flowing with the spirit of a young lass to merge with Tons near Tiuni. The road serving almost as the border between Himachal Pradesh (left) and Uttarakhand (right).

Pandranu they tell me is in Himachal. But if you cross the iron bridge over the rapidly rushing Pabbar river and reach the other bank you are in Uttarakhand. I am staying at a lone house overlooking the Pabbar river. The owner family has gone to the higher hills because it’s apple harvest season. They have an ancient house at the native village surrounded by their apple orchards. During the day as I cross the bridge and go to the small market having a few shops by the road, I’m actually crossing boundaries many times in a day.

The common peacock butterfly (Paplio biamor), all bright and shiny, is a beautiful flier full of colors: bluish green, blue, green; a solitary fast flier in lovely fluorescent peacock colors. It’s bigger in size in comparison to the butterflies at my native place. It can even afford to flutter its colors in the windy swirls over the spating Pabbar river. So when it flutters here near the place where I’m staying, it’s the state butterfly of Uttarakhand. But when it flutters to the other side of the road, it turns an ordinary butterfly and loses its status of a state butterfly.

Near the market, down the road is a small auction mandi for the apple farmers. It’s a busy place in the morning. The pick-up trucks arriving laden with apple crates and card boxes. The main commission agent is a wily, smart middlemen between the farmers and the traders from the plains. Nearby, in the same open compound, is a tiny tin-shed snack point run by two glamorous ladies. They have tattooed limbs, wear very tight leggings and T-shirts, flaunt bleached brown hair and display flashy lipsticks. A phone number is prominently displayed on the signboard in front of the establishment. So you have many people taking extra tea or maggi even while they aren’t hungry. The porters naughtily wink that there is some side business as well.

Rajesh, the owner of the house where I’m staying, is a small man with slightly bandy legs that gives him an elderly grace as he walks. He is busy in his orchards high up in the hills. The crow flight might not be that much but to reach there one has to travel about 22 km, first on the main narrow tarred road, then cross the bridge over the river and then move up the barely motorable mud track up the hill to his native village and orchards. He and his Nepalese workers work very hard. They have even fixed rudimentary spans (wire trolleys). It’s a basic contrivance made of massive logs, planks and wires to convey apples from the higher reaches. From there the produce is laden on pick-up jeeps. These travel about 40 km on the narrow, winding hill roads. The apple boxes are then loaded on cargo trucks plying on broader, better roads to be ferried to the plains.

Rajesh has a dominating wife and maybe to keep her happy he has a framed photo of his in-laws with his little brother-in-law standing between them. I mistook it to be his parents photo because people usually keep their own photos. He was embarrassed when I pointed this out. But then if it works as a coolant in the running engine of his matrimony then there shouldn’t be any issue. His wife is hospitable like most of the pahari people are. She will give you the best of bedding and the best of food cooked soulfully. But she will turn disdainful and impetuous if you commit the mistake of picking a raw corn not yet ready for consumption. She will show you supreme scorn if you steal her raw corn. She loves her trees, plants and little rows of vegetables.

I got the opportunity to witness the rainbow colors of a nice hostess at their old, traditional wooden hill house high on the mountain. The logs were ancient but the house carried a dignity of the purity and solitude of past years. A hill house that stands against snows, rains and winds for one and a half centuries becomes almost a temple on account of its survival, for its having seen many generations under its log roofs. The ground floor is for the cattle. The wooden steps lead one to a wooden balcony. The trapdoor on the landing in the balcony is shut at night. The men-folk in the hills drink with relish. So the gathering of drinkers in the floor-bedded hall would go to the side in the balcony and urinate over the wooden railing into the bushes below. I wasn’t part of the drinking gang who did it profusely but still you need toilet at least once after the sundown. So I also did it with a guilty feeling. A dog barked from below, probably grumbling over such uncouth manners.

While the drinkers are snoring heavily, leaving the house almost thunderstruck, I have a dream. A rat snake is sneaking into the house. I spot it but feel ok because my knowledge about its non-poisonous nature avoids me from feeling the typical snake-born shock. Then another snake crawls in. This time it’s a pinkish brown cobra. A man catches its hood from behind and squeezes it to let out many big squirts of poison. Another person is holding a syringe full of water to inject plain water in place of the poison in the empty poison sacks. How I wish I could inject love in some hateful people! I was just a silent, inactive witness to all this happening in the dream.

Down by the river, while staying at their empty new house, I have a lazy time observing and learning about the place. A tea-maker told me about a scandal. Kasab was trying to fleece away two sisters of Nepalese origin on the pretext of getting them filmi jobs in Mumbai. But they were caught at the Tiuni bus stand by the Rudra Sena activists. So the hills have their own little share of upheavals among these small hamlets.

This small hilly pocket on the remote Himachal-Uttarakhand border has its little page in regional history as well. Askot Arakot Abhiyan is almost a local historical milestone. On May 25, 1974 four students of Garhwal university, on encouragement by social activist Hemwati Bahuguna, started on a 1110 km journey, from the village of Askot on Nepal border to Arakot. Shekhar Pathak, Shamsher Singh Bisht, Kunwar Prasun, Pratap Shikhar undertook this 45-day journey to study the conditions of people in the hills. They stayed with the locals on the way to know more about their life. Since then Shekhar Pathak begins this foot journey once every decade on May 25. The participants can join and leave any time. You cannot keep any money on your person so that you have the only option to stay with the villagers on the way. The tea-maker, my local history guide, was part of the fifth abhiyan in 2014 from Pangu to Arakot, passing through villages, alpine pastures, kharaks (high altitude grazing fields), earthquake and landslide prone zones, chattees (ancient pilgrimage camping sites).

He tells me about keeda jadi (Yarsa gumba) smuggling in the region of Kosha glacier in Joshimath area where Dhauli Ganga river originates. It’s used as a steroid. Forest fires are illegally started to melt the glaciers and catch the caterpillar fungus from the stones which emerge after the snow melts. The smugglers use even uric acid to start exothermic reaction to melt the glaciers. It’s a very costly steroid, he informs me. The smugglers entice the local villagers to collect keeda jadi. People have set up entire camps with porters and ponies to extract it. They unleash forest fires in the lower reaches so that the rising smoke melts the snow.

If you love wandering in the surrounding forests, you may come across a little group of Van Gujjars, the buffalo-rearing Muslim pastoral migrants, the hill nomads. But tough forest laws make it difficult for them to migrate across the hills these days. They don’t hold official papers for Indian citizenship and the police mistreats them very often. There have been some attempts to settle them at a place but they couldn’t manage their livestock within closed limits. Many get jailed for transgressing forests laws. Some have turned laborers, but most of them just somehow roam the restricted areas, evading law, trying to protect their traditional way of life and living. It’s the same old story like all the nomadic communities facing jeopardy in the plains.

‘My first love and first time had been with a Gujjar girl, right there in those forests,’ he raises his head towards the bare hillside high on the slope. I can’t see any forests. ‘The forests vanished. Like they vanished the very next day after our first kiss,’ he says with a memory-laden sweet sigh. ‘Maybe someone saw you,’ I give a reason. ‘Maybe someone saw, maybe it was just coincidence, but I got married and I’m a grandfather now. She too must be a grandmother by this time,’ he again looked into the forest that was no longer there. One would always remember the first bud that opened into love even if one stays among an orchard of love for a century. ‘Do you still miss her?’ I ask. ‘I just remember. Some things you never forget,’ he says wistfully.  

A bloodless war

 Tariff war is a suitable replacement for the actual bloodshed on battlefields. We have been at war on many fronts since thousands of years. It has gone deep into our genes. So if a war it has to be, let it be a tariff war. We carry lots of hate, fear, suspicion, ego, the urge to dominate. All these seek an outlet. It leaks like lava from narrow fissures and avoids a big blast which occurs after a long cycle. So this tariff war is a nice, new vent that opens for the inner lava to come out of the guts of powerful leaders. It would postpone a bloody explosion. So businessman Trump might delay actual blood and gore which President Trump might not have achieved. By the way, hey you AI guys, why don’t you devise virtual wars that can be played by the mightily angry rulers to vent out their hot lava? I would love it if the bloody reality is replaced by a virtual one. 

A home-making squirrel

 

The squirrel stays among the larger clump of trees outside the yard wall. Now and then it flits in to have a view of the little clump of garden trees—parijat, bhelpatra, guava, karipatta, champa. A cloth line is strung between the yard wall and this small group of trees in the middle of the courtyard.

Usually the squirrel runs in from below the lower grills of the main iron gate. But of late I see it crawling over the cloth line to reach the trees. Then one day I find the reason for this difficult crawl. It nibbles at the seam threads of my clothes hung for drying.

Actually it’s making a new house among the parijat’s top branches. It’s resourceful enough to pick out fluffy threads—the construction material for its new house—available near the site. After that, when I see it crawling over the line, I run to the capacity of my bones, shake the rope vigorously to make it fall down. It jumps in panic.

But it’s a stubborn squirrel or maybe knows that a poet has a severe limitation in carrying on such behavior. So despite my frantic efforts to cut down its supply lines from this end, it continues with its crawling mission.  

Journey with a wandering monk

 

I’m walking to the famous jhilmil gufa in the hills above Rishikesh. In order to take a shortcut I end up taking a long-cut as it usually happens. The hill forests are mischievous. The tiny foot trails are green leafy mazes where they will try to keep you busy in solving the puzzle. Then a baba arrives from some other trail. I ask him about the caves where sage Gorakhnath did tapasya for many years. Incidentally he is also going to the caves.

He is one of the most friendly babas I have seen. It’s surprising given the fact that he is a naga sadhu, the warrior ascetics who worship lord Shiva. Within a few minutes we are talking like good friends.

Baba Shambhu Giri is from Jalna, Maharashtra. He was a sickly child in a poor family. They couldn’t afford to get treatment for him. So his helpless parents offered him to the holy fireplace at the ashram of a naga baba. The baba took care of him from the age of five, treated him with herbal medicines, and initiated him into the order. He turned out to be a healthy, robust sadhu. Then his guru left his body, leaving the ashram and its 41 acres of agricultural land under the disciple’s care.

‘I’m a farming naga baba. I don’t believe in asking for alms. I do farming on the ashram land,’ he shows me his tough farming hands. The nagas have fought many times in wars to upkeep dharma. ‘Only a person from a warrior clan, the martial castes like Maratha, Jat, Sikh and Rajput, can become a naga,’ he says with pride as he walks with force in his steps like a soldier sage.

I am surprised to know about the level of their opposition to the Brahmins. I will avoid the details of that discussion because my Brahmin friends will get angry about this. I’m from a Jat family and to be frank at the level of community we too have lots of things to say against Brahmins, just like Brahmins have against us.

He is happy to learn that I’m also from a martial caste. We Indians can’t help getting into the casteist talk even when we are in the hill forests and happen to be a naga baba and a spiritual seeker. So we have our share of bitching against the Brahmins. The details should always be avoided. The summary I can say is that naga baba told me that Brahmins come from the lineage of daityas and in Maharashtra about 75% of the people avoid getting a Brahmin for officiating at a havan on auspicious occasions like marriages and other pujas. So that should give you the level of our partisan talk. Caste becomes a major factor even in talks between two strangers in a forest. No wonder caste decides who rules the country.

‘The ashram land provides enough money. Then there is charity which we sadhus get so easily just sitting on our bums whether we deserve it or not. I use the money to manage the ashram, getting poor girls married and other charity work. And once a year I come out on my wanderings like this,’ he is very honest about what he thinks and feels, be it money or caste. I like his honesty about most of the things. He just says what he thinks inside. No pretensions.

Suddenly he gets excited like a boy and goes to a bush nearby. ‘Bichhu buti, scorpion plant, I got myself bitten by it yesterday. It’s very discomfiting and painful but I won’t get any disease for the next six months,’ he tells me. Who won’t wish to have free, natural immunity against all diseases for six months? I ask him to get me bitten by the buti in the right proportions. He is hesitant. Then agrees. He holds a little shoot softly and gently allowing one tip to touch on the back of my palm. He removes it before it barely touches the skin, like a father would be careful not to harm his child. No effect. I pester him for a bit higher dose. So this time the touch is bigger, and still bigger on successive trials. I don’t wince with pain. I don’t get my free immunity shot. Both of us are disappointed. ‘This is no bichhu buti. It’s some fake plant imitating a famous one,’ we conclude.

Most of the sadhus have a free passage to the places of other sadhus. An ash-smeared naga baba is performing a havan for a seemingly rich man. It’s a large fireplace, the big trishuls are blackened with smoke and look ferocious. We sit in front of our host, he with friendly ease and me with apprehension because I have heard about their inflammable tempers when disturbed. But my naga baba friend is a shield against getting shoved away with the tip of a trishul. The ash-smeared naga is calm, focused on his rituals. He nods to our greeting and without stopping the process, gives us soaked grams and raisins as prasad. To be frank I take almost as much as would fill my cupped palms together. I am hungry and eat prasad like dinner. The naga baba watches me with a strange muse. So I have my food and my friend baba has prasad.

We take leave from the baba and move onto our path. Then he suddenly points to a place where he faced a leopard during the Corona period. The world of humans had retreated and the animals came out. ‘It was standing there and snarled. I knew it could injure me if it didn’t run away. Had I turned my back to it, it would have reached me in three bounding strides. So I stood upfront and took up a stone. Never look away from a predator and never show your back. And hit it on the nose if it approaches you. By the grace of God, the leopard backed away and vanished in the forest,’ he shares the story.

Then the baba’s chappal gets broken. I am wearing shoes. I feel guilty in walking in shoes while the baba has a broken chappal. But surprisingly he walks as if it’s not broken at all. Once in the gufa he tells me all the stories related to the place. We have tea in front of Baba Gorakhnath’s fireplace. They smoke weed. The cave’s resident sadhus are good hosts. Again the matter of caste comes up. ‘Brahmins and householders aren’t allowed to touch the holy ash in the fireplace,’ the Gorakhnath order sadhu tells me. The casteist bugs in me are getting fattened today. I nod with glee, almost happy, even joyful about the fact that Brahmins don’t hold monopoly to our faith. They maybe manage more of the ritualistic part of it. So we have to accept the fact that casteism is deeply entrenched in our Indian soul. It decides things from caves to presidential palaces. They babas are on a meditative high on weed, my head spins just with the smoke.

I stand up and walk to another small cave on the side of the big cave. And here I come across the most mischievous bala yogi, a naga boy sadhu. He doesn’t speak, just hums like a black bee. Continuously. I marvel that he is actually a black bee hovering over the divine flower to sip the nectar of self realization.

My naga friend will stay here today but I have to walk back. So Baba Shambhu Giri introduces other caves to me like Hanuman gufa and Ganesh gufa. The kind baba then guides me to the trail that would take me to Neelkanth from where I could easily walk back to Rishikesh. I take out 500 rupees before taking leave. He isn’t interested in it. He has enough he already told me. ‘Maharaj, your chappal got broken while sharing this lovely journey with me, so it’s my duty to give a replacement,’ I request in all sincerity. He agrees. ‘Ok, if you say so. I will buy a nice pair of chappals in your name,’ he laughs. We take leave.

I had a bamboo stick with me as a companion on the way up. But I forgot it at the place where we had sat down to eat prasad at the naga baba’s place on the way up. Now I miss the sturdy stick as I wade through a steep, faint trail among lots of bushes in the forest. And when I reach the place where he had pointed out the leopard I miss my stick even more. What will I do with a stick in the face of a leopard? Well, at least I would try to hit it on the foe’s nose as suggested by the baba and get a solace that I die fighting. But there is no leopard and I quickly move on the feeble trails to get to the main path.